Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Aug 6, 2010

In my continuing quest to work on spreading my influence, I figured I may as well add another thing to help figure out just what kind of influence I have, at least through this blog.

Back in June, before really thinking much about this project, I added Topsy, which allows people to retweet my blog posts if they like them without having to sign up for a service like TweetMeMe. This time I’ve installed the plugin called fbLikeButton. You have to put it in just like that, because there are a lot of plugins for the like button for Facebook. However, this one was the highest rated by people who have tried others, and I know why. It was the only one that didn’t require me to go to Facebook and set up a script to use it.

You’ll notice at the end of the post that the “like” button shows up just under my copyright notice. You have the choice of having it at the top or bottom or in both places, but I chose the bottom because it interfered with my “listen” button, and I figured having it at the end of the post make it easier for anyone who liked it and didn’t want to go back to the top. Of course, it would be nice if my Topsy allowed me to do that as well, but I think I like it just the same. You can also make it wider or thicker, so to speak, and you can select “recommend” instead of “like”; I stuck with the regular one. And if people click on it, their names and image will show at the end of your post as well; you get to determine if you want faces to show, and I decided to go that route for now.

What the like button does… heck, let’s just show what Facebook says it does:

“When the user clicks the Like button on your site, a story appears in the user’s friends’ News Feed with a link back to your website.”

Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Jun 29, 2010

If you haven’t noticed, there are two new things on my blog that I have yet to talk about, and I owe both of them to two guys and two WordPress plugins.

The first was recommended by our friend Sire who wrote a post titled Wassupblogs Posts Are Copyright Protected With Digiprove. Yeah, long title, but he did bring to my attention this plugin from a company called Digiprove. What it does is adds a copyright to the bottom of each post that proves it’s from you originally. That way, if you have to fuss at someone because they’ve stolen your content, which happens often, and you need backup proof that it’s yours, the digital sign is there.

I’ve noticed most people who steal my content also steal other things of mine that sometimes don’t work for them, such as my ReadSpeaker plugin. This means that my copyright thing will be at the bottom of whatever they steal. Well, at least it’s supposed to be. One, it won’t go back and update it on previous posts, although I’ve found that if you go in and make an update to any older posts that it will add the proof. Two, every once in awhile it will skip an article if you’ve post-dated it, which is irritating but easily correctable. You have to sign up for the service, though it’s free for most of us, and then you’re good to go.

The second plugin was recommended by our friend Dennis while we were talking via instant messaging. He kept asking me why I didn’t have a retweet button on this blog, which I used to have, but the plugin I was using (the name of which escapes me now) kept locking up this blog. I asked him what he was using and he said Topsy. Now you’ll notice that at the top of each post, to the right, is this little box that you’ve probably seen on a host of other blogs. It makes retweeting easier if you choose to share this article. It also makes my friend Scott happy since he’d been copying my full blog links, which didn’t give him any room to add a comment, as this plugin also creates one of those tiny urls that are prevalent all over Twitter.

Anyway, if you’ve been looking for something that can handle this issue for you, there you go; enjoy.

About

My name is Mitch Mitchell and I'm Just Sharing is where I share my thoughts on writing, blogging social media, internet marketing, and many other things. You never know what I'll write about here. So keep coming back, read, comment, enjoy, and buy something if the moment hits you! ;-)